OK, I admit it. I had the Transport Users’ Committee meeting down for
tomorrow, I had even charged my recorder batteries and packed a notebook and pencil, but
it was last Thursday,
Maybe it is just as well as I had in mind
saying what I thought of the Committee.
Bexley is too often close to a standstill. I did one of my Bromley return trips
yesterday before 5 a.m. to avoid a couple of hours on the road. Unfortunately I
had to return in the late afternoon. Brampton Road is shut and last time I
tackled Sidcup at that sort of time it took 25 minutes to get from Waitrose via
The Green to the hospital. Yesterday I thought I’d give it all a wide berth.
From Lesnes Abbey to Picardy Road, along Nuxley Road and out to Long Lane.
From there Gravel Hill to Bexley Village and North Cray Road to the A20 and Bromley.
But it was not to be. Bexley Village was shut again so I had to return to the
traditional Sidcup route. I wasn’t going to risk the 25 minute QEH delay again so I
planned to go via Knoll Road and down Sidcup Hill to Footscray and the A20.
No such luck. The traffic queue started at Rectory Lane. On Sidcup Hill there was the half hour queue of traffic trying to get
to Sidcup and past the hospital and in the easterly direction there was a half hour queue
of people like me who were trying to avoid it.
The queue on the Bromley side of the hospital extended to within a few hundred yards of Chislehurst station and the works are scheduled to take 18 months.
Now I know that these problems are largely not directly Bexley Council’s fault
(Greenwich Council trying to fix the road they closed last November. Gas and
Thames Water yesterday) but come next May I will not give them the benefit of any doubt. The roads are a
shambles and they are ultimately responsible. Irrational or not, it will make me feel better.
Oddly enough the Committee was due to discuss the London
Permit Scheme and Lane Rental which would allow utilities to be charged for
wrecking local economies. I would think Thames Water should be paying £2 million
a week for what they have done to Sidcup. Has it not been brought to a
standstill every weekday over the past two months? £10,000 a week for more minor
roads too, although I think that is beyond the scope of the Lane Rental Scheme
which Bexley Council says it is considering.
The rather blurry map below shows in blue where Thames Water has or shortly will
have, its road wrecking schemes.
Disruption everywere.
While on the subject of the appalling Thames Water; on 1st March I asked them for a copy of their 2025/26 tariff. ie. the current one.
Next year 2026/27 is on the website but not this year.
On 11th March they agreed with me, it isn’t publicly available - but they couldn’t tell me what it is. As soon as the weather improves a bit I will repeat last year’s protest of running the garden tap
continuously straight down the drain. A drop in the ocean compared to what they
waste but until they agree to give me a stopcock in the footpath outside…